Gay marriage in N.J. draws support, opposition: Readers weigh in

Jerry McCrea/The Star-LedgerSupporters of gay marriage rally in Hoboken in this July file photo.

True vows

I am a Catholic who has been in a committed lesbian relationship for 15 years.

I invite you to spend one day observing the way we’ve opened our home to friends, family, strangers and foster children, and then tell me that our relationship has not produced life, most especially for those unloved children of heterosexual relationships.

I would also like to remind your readers that there are many Catholics who take the long view of our church and its teachings. We remain prayerfully hopeful that just as it finally came to terms with its legacy of racism and anti-Semitism, so too will it come to terms with its current sins of sexism, homophobia, abuse, hypocrisy and the arrogance of its “faithful” who actually think they can speak for the mind of God.

What I need is for the government to stop denying me, my partner and my children the very same rights that other families enjoy.

Until you support this, I question how anyone can call himself a Christian.

Adele Gatens, Plainfield

Take a vote

We’re going to have a vote in November. Why not place on the ballot two very controversial issues and let the people decide, rather than a partisan group pandering to their constituency? The two issues are 1) same-sex marriage and 2) showing proof of citizenship in order to vote. Let the people decide what’s best for the country and let democracy work.

R.J. Mallin, Califon

Illogical argument

In the letter “The purpose of marriage” (Jan. 14), Gerald T. Foley Jr. states that gay couples should be denied marriage on the grounds that they cannot fulfill the primary function of marriage, which is procreation. Using that logic, all postmenopausal women, as well as all infertile individuals, should be denied marriage — or at least they should have been denied marriage in the centuries before modern medicine made it possible for them to procreate.

Given that even the most conservative of societies have, since time immemorial, allowed older and infertile individuals to marry, it is clear that the inability to procreate is not, in itself, a valid reason — even for conservatives — for denying marriage to gays.

Martin Carroll, Watchung

No equivalence

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) is trying to insinuate that those who oppose gay marriage can be compared to those who opposed interracial marriage back in the 1950s (“PolitiFact: Oliver’s facts on race-based marriage bans mostly correct,” Jan. 15). Wrong! Most folks who oppose gay marriage see nothing at all wrong with interracial marriage, provided it follows the norms of marriage, between one man and one woman.

People pushing this gay-marriage agenda are obfuscating the facts by using specious arguments such as this to make those of us who refuse to accept their agenda feel somehow less than civil.

Stephen E. Thorpe, Winfield Park

Freedom’s laws

It didn’t take me very long at all to be able to look past the straw man that Paul Mulshine propped up in his column on marriage equality (“Gay marriage: Shut up and let us vote,” Jan. 15).

Guaranteeing the right to marry to gays and lesbians does not require a constitutional amendment, as Mulshine suggested.

Two landmark federal laws — the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination against African-Americans and women, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discrimination at the polls — expanded freedom in this country legislatively. Democracy was served, and while I’d like to think each would have been approved by popular vote, I’m glad freedom didn’t have to take that chance.